DPS bets on music, art to keep students in school

Apr. 11, 2013

Written by

Chastity Pratt Dawsey

Detroit Free Press Education Writer

Detroit Public Schools plans to provide preschool to all of the city's 4-year-olds, offer music and art after school and allow schools to house educational and social services for 12 hours every day as part of an ambitious effort to attract and retain students.

The ideas are part of a 2013-17 strategic plan that Roy Roberts, emergency manager for DPS, announced Thursday. The plan, largely unfunded, will rely heavily on partnerships, grants and fund-raising by the DPS Foundation, a nonprofit that is financially separate from the district.

The plan comes after five weeks of meetings with focus groups that included 600 participants from across the city.

"These plans are designed to dramatically change our mind-sets and the way we do things," Roberts said. "DPS needs to change now or it can very well find itself out of business. ... We need to look at creative ways to fill our school buildings."

The plan also includes four school closures this summer, a new attendance policy and an effort to provide greeters and improved customer service in all schools and the central office. In addition, the plan calls for a longer school day and school year.

O'Dell Tate, president of the Morningside neighborhood association, took part in the strategic planning process, helping with telephone polls and surveys. He was pleased that DPS intends to find ways to transform buildings into "community schools" that offer social and community services.

"People wanted schools to be open 24 hours as a community resource," he said.

The community school concept could start in several schools in the fall where the buildings do not require construction to accommodate space for new programs. But first, school and parent groups will have to determine which services they want in their schools. The programs will require partnerships.

So far, the universal preschool program is the most sweeping change in the strategic plan that has been guaranteed funding.

DPS has applied for a federal grant to expand preschool; however, if the funding is not approved, DPS will cut other parts of the budget to provide universal preschool to 4-year-olds. About 800 4-year-olds are currently on the waiting list, according to DPS.

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In a show of faith that the five-year strategic plan will attract money and students, Roberts nixed past plans to close 28 schools over the next five years. This summer, only four buildings will close: Oakman Elementary, Wilkins Elementary-Middle, Duke Ellington Elementary-Middle and the building housing Davis Aerospace. Davis will be a separate school inside the Golightly Career and Technical Center; Davis students will be bused to the DPS hangar at city airport for flying lessons.

The academic program at Northwestern High also will close and the Detroit Collegiate Preparatory High program located for now in one wing of the building will take over the school, renaming it Detroit Collegiate Preparatory at Northwestern. Similarly, Duke Ellington will move into the Beckham school building, renaming it Duke Ellington at Beckham.

Northwestern and Beckham have been on the state's lowest-achieving list for three years and are at risk of being transferred to the state reform district if the programs are not closed.

The four school building closures are the last, Roberts said. Accepting enrollment losses and closing schools is a plan to fail, he said.

"No more, no more," he said.

But keeping that promise relies on growing the district's enrollment, he said.

Since 2000, DPS has closed 201 buildings and opened more than two dozen. The result is 181 school closures. Today, DPS has 50,000 students in nearly 100 buildings, which reflects a loss of two-thirds of its enrollment in the past decade. It has 28,000 empty seats.

The district also has a deficit of about $76 million and long-term debt of about $400 million. Its deficit-elimination plan projects that now through 2016 DPS will lose about 13,000 students. If that happens, the district also will lose that per-pupil funding, making it harder to pay off debt and forcing the closure of more schools.

Roberts called it "a sin" that the district's schools are closed during hours and weekends when the facilities can be used for an array of services including adult education, day care, homework assistance, elder care, job training, literacy development, prenatal training, technology skills, financial literacy and social services.

"We've got to be smarter than that," he said.

"We have to have a plan to win. You don't execute well, it's just a bunch of words on paper."